Reynad, Kripparrian, Trump, Kolento, TidesofTime and SjoW will be competing in the first ever Prismata tournament, held this Thursday, November 20th.

We’ve seen these players compete at high levels in games like Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, and WoW. Now, they’ve been invited to compete in the first ever pro invitational Prismata tournament. Sparks will fly as these talented players square off in Prismata—a fast-paced card game with no decks and no RNG. Only the skilled will survive.

This is a post about a game development hackathon that we’ll be live-streaming for much of the next two days. But this is no ordinary hackathon. We’re upping the ante by setting a hard deadline that could result in extreme embarrassment if things go horribly wrong. Allow me to explain.

Organized tournaments are a favourite aspect of many of the games we know and love, and Prismata is no different, being an excellent candidate for compelling and competitive tourneys. After the success of events like Alex’s Prismata Cup Hearthstone tournament, our fans have been begging us to host an actual Prismata tournament. So, at long last, we’re doing it. The first ever Prismata Open Tourney will happen tomorrow, Thursday October 16th, at 7pm Eastern time. We’ve recruited a slew of Hearthstone and poker pros to participate, including millionaire poker superstar Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald and Hearthstone number one Americas legend Jeffrey ‘Tarei’ Liu. The tournament is going to be epic.

There is just one problem.

Prismata currently doesn’t support tournaments. At all. There is literally no tournament feature in Prismata, and we’ve never worked on one before.

That’s why we’re adding tournaments, today. We’ll be designing, coding, and refining Prismata’s tournament features in a 30-hour hackathon that starts 1pm EST Wednesday and ends at 7pm Thursday—when the first Prismata tournament will begin.

The stage is set as 64 of the best players in Hearthstone will play to a winner in the Prismata Cup 2—probably the most hyped Hearthstone tournament ever. Following the success of the original Prismata Cup, which saw a peak of 40k concurrent viewers and was the strongest Hearthstone tournament to date, this event is already promising to be even bigger.

The Prismata Cup is a merit-based tournament open only to high-rank legends. 32 incredibly good players—likely the strongest field of any Hearthstone tournament that has taken place thus far—competed in a competitive 5-round Swiss format, with those having 4-0 or 4-1 records advancing to the single elimination finals that will be broadcast today.

Tempo Storm Gaara, one of the finalists, claims that this tournament produced the best matches ever recorded in Hearthstone history. Having taken a peek at the VODs myself, I couldn’t agree more. If you watch one Hearthstone tournament this year, watch the Prismata Cup finals. Below are five reasons why:

Last weekend, we ran the Prismata Cup—a merit-based Hearthstone tournament open to high-ranking players. It featured 32 of Hearthstone’s top Legend-rank players, and likely had the strongest field of any Hearthstone tournament that has taken place thus far.

“The best matches ever recorded in Hearthstone history.”

“Everyone who plays Hearthstone has to watch these games.”

-Two of the six finalists from the Prismata Cup

The playoff rounds of the Prismata Cup, featuring the top 6 players from the tournament, will be broadcast this Sunday, August 3rd, with Trump and Hafu commentating.

You should watch them. Because the games are unbelievable.

The Prismata Cup wasn’t the first competitive tournament that I’ve directed. But it was the first time we’ve run a Hearthstone tournament of this scale. Though things generally went well, some hiccups inevitably had to be dealt with on competition day. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the more amusing things that happened, along with some of the problems that arose, and what Blizzard could change to help organized tournaments run more smoothly.

Tournament formats in gaming events have remained largely unchanged for a long time. As E-sports progresses, tournament organizers will frequently copy formats from past events, often selecting formats that are not optimally suited for their needs. In this article, we’ll take a look at 4 examples of actual tournament structures used in past Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Starcraft events, and we’ll suggest changes that would have made these events better.

Getting the format right is principally important to every element of a tournament. Having a proper format can dramatically improve the quality of the experience for both the viewers and competitors. For the viewers, a good format can create a more exciting and competitive finals by being much more likely to match the best two teams together. For the players, it makes the distribution of prize money more legitimate, ensuring that the earnings are deserved. It’s very important to understand that choosing a better format that optimizes for its goals will produce a better overall outcome on average.